Friday Reading

CDR Salamander has Fullbore Friday, honoring Col. John W. Ripley, who recently died. Col. Ripley was an extraordinary man. "Ripley at the Ridge" is a solid piece of Marine Corps legend. See here. And for more, read the book, The Bridge at Dong Ha.

Steeljaw Scribe goes all props and taildraggers in Flightdeck Friday.

What will John McCain do? The Dems want him squishy, says Betsy Newmark.

Nice piece on the gratitude of Dems in Congress to "bi-partisanship" - yes, I know, there isn't any. Having a party hard liner like Rahm Emanuel in the White House means not much will worked out unless it's "their way." Get ready for heavy weather. Political weather. See here:

Like all Clintonistas, he is intensely, even insanely partisan. He is extremely tough (mailed a dead fish to a former rival in the White House) - a bare knuckled brawler in a very tough business (his nickname at the White House was "Rahm-bo"). He will no doubt keep the WH staff in line while mapping out strategies to make the GOP irrelevant.

Not that the Republicans haven't worked hard at that themselves. Time to form a new "Conservative" Party and let the Rockefeller Republicans fend for themselves?Newt Gingrich says "Real change requires real change." Hard to argue with that. I see that the President-elect has found a free labor source - arguing for mandatory "voluntary" community service from high school and college students and maybe from their elders...I wonder if working for your church or an opposing political party will count? Does anyone remember what the word "freedom" means? "Political freedom is the absence of interference with the sovereignty of an individual by the use of coercion or aggression. The members of a free society would have full dominion over their public and private lives." Making community service a requirement to graduate is using coercion... and a means of limiting individual rights to refuse to offer one's services for free. If the state can force you to work at a task, even when the goal may be deemed "worthwhile," the definition of "worthwhile" allows for some serious manipulation. Worthwhile to who?

Where does the coercion stop? Lawyers have to do free work? Doctors? Auto mechanics? Plumbers? Anyone licensed by a state is in line to be forced to work for free as a requirement of keeping their license. After all, it's for the "common good."

Some of the writers of the U.S. Constitution were concerned that enumerating certain rights in the fist 10 amendments would cause rights to be limited to only those enumerated. Others argued that no one would think in that narrow way...seems like the left wing do-gooders do.